


pax tecum

by vengeance



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout: New Vegas
Genre: Comedic Decapitation, Gen, Video Game Logic, arcade breaches patient confidentiality, arcade in a bonnet, boone cameo, but not really he just wears the thotty raider armour, but the clap of her asscheeks dont alert the legion because of mad sneak stats, dummy thicc courier, himbo arcade, ideas taken from in game bugs/features, rated t for descriptions of violence and injury, vulpes cameo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-17
Updated: 2019-04-17
Packaged: 2020-01-15 08:39:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18495358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vengeance/pseuds/vengeance
Summary: pax tecum - “Peace be with you”, a common farewell phrase. Arcade travels with a package courier.





	pax tecum

**Author's Note:**

> s/o to my fellow arcadeposters who may have beta read. won’t out you here, but i’m very grateful for u all. without your support and without you enabling me, this would’ve never been completed. 
> 
> there’s not much Latin, but notes on it are at the end.

As usual, the rays of the sun beat down across the Old Mormon Fort. Arcade worked in his little corner of the tent as he almost always did, the remains of a cacti were on the side of a table; the dissected carcass of another was on a Petri dish, ready to be discarded.  
  
Ordinary as it was, he was scouring through old holotapes for any leads on his so-called research. _Fruitless research,_ pardon the pun. After hours of killing time, he stepped outside for his routine stroll to stretch his legs, where he saw one gambler nudge another; he pointed at an unfamiliar figure in the camp, uttering about something he didn't quite care enough about to listen properly, only catching the words _'From Nipton to Novac’_ . The unfamiliar figure was a woman, currently talking to Beatrix; he thought nothing of it, other than the fact that they were wearing similar hats.  
  
Ducking back into the tent, he continued working, skimming through old files and records, until said woman walked in and smiled at him. He was caught a little off-guard, and he cleared his throat. “Hi, If you're looking for medical help, try the other doctors... I'm just a researcher. Not even a particularly good one.”

She nodded as he explained what he did, and surprisingly she took an interest _._ A strange character, unaware what a Follower even was and what they did, with garishly bright hair that poked out underneath a cowboy hat, speaking in a dialect he was unfamiliar with. The same strange character who eventually asked to travel with him. A woman in her mid twenties, clearly well-built enough to carry the sledgehammer strapped to her back. Arcade wondered why she would want some doctor like him to travel with her, until scratched her head admitting that the world around her was too complicated.  
  
"Hmm. Wow. You sound like you really do need some help. Look, I can help you out, but you can't do anything stu-" He bit his tongue. _You can't just call people you met stupid. Even if you think they are._ "I mean, you can't... Help bad people, who want to hurt the locals in Freeside. If you do, I'll leave. Does that make sense?  
  
She nodded. "It's okay. Am good."  
  
He raised his brow, gave her a look, and then nodded. "...Good," He hummed, "Who are you, by the way?"  
  
"Courier,"  She said simply, not going into any more depth. He didn't press it.

  
\---

 

She was just known as _The_ _Courier_ , never elaborating what she was a courier of, or if she had another name, besides the one that she told everyone. She was unintentionally mysterious, going by a name that wasn’t quite a name, and not being the kind of person that talks about herself. The only thing he knew for certain about her was in how she moved. Scarily, she was capable of moving very quietly, and that she was also capable of handling any weapon that could be swung with a fluidity and finesse that he'd never seen before. _As if it was part of her arm_ , he thought, as if someone had taught her how to fight, and she had been doing so for years… In one deft movement, she hit an attacking Freeside thug square in the side of his face with a tire iron. He wondered briefly if The Courier’s origins were tribal, his idle thoughts halted when the thug's head splattered in a spurt of blood and gore from the impact.

The decapitated body slumped onto the cracked pavement. The pair of them stared at it.

“Well, I guess that's over,” was all that he could say. 

She was still looking at it. Eyes wide, brows raised and her mouth hung open, rubbing off the blood that had splattered onto her face with her sleeve, as if she was surprised as he was. She dragged his body out of Freeside’s gates, dumped his body on the ground, pulled out a shovel and began digging. A grave that he watched her make quickly as she shovelled the dirt with ease. When she saw that the grave was deep enough, she stripped him bare, salvaging a worn outfit of a shirt and dungarees. The man she just decapitated was now naked too, and she dropped him into the hole with a dull thud. She covered him in dirt quickly, and flattened the surface of it with her shovel. She turned on her heels walked away, seemingly satisfied and he followed her. He almost wanted to laugh at the absurdity of it.

 

\---

 

In the wastes, The Courier scavenged for whatever she could find, and buried more bodies that she came by, or created by any trigger-happy wastelander with an unlucky trajectory. Despite her eccentricities and below-average intellect, she proved to be almost as dexterous as she was strong. Whenever she found two of the same weapon, she was able to fashion on superior weapon by salvaging the less-worn parts from one weapon, and applying them to the other, improving the condition of it. Somehow, she was able to do the same for some clothes she scavenged. The dungarees she took from the first man she decapitated had been significantly improved from their original condition. Arcade wasn't too sure how she did it, but regardless he was quietly impressed.

By repeating this enough times, she was able to get a small assortment of handheld guns and apparel that were in very good condition.

Though he had his questions about her, he kept them to himself. It was quite refreshing to be with someone who didn't pry into his personal life. She didn't talk to him about her life, so he wouldn’t talk about his; this way it was fair, and he figured that it was some kind of silent agreement they came to. She only stopped him to ask him to carry items, a few guns, bottles of water and Sunset Sarsaparilla, pieces of scrap metal, one of her spare shovels, a conductor, gecko hides, and an... orb of unknown origins?

 “If you don't mind me asking about what you're making me carry, but what… is this?” In his hands, it weighed around eight pounds, plus or minus a pound either way. This orb was mottled brown and red in colour, and littered in cracks. Seemingly organic, but he had never seen anything like this before… He wouldn't be surprised if this was just a peculiarly shaped rock either.

The Courier stared at it, and then placed her hand over the surface of it. “Deathclaw egg,” she declared, as soon as she touched it.

 “Hm, interesting.” _Perhaps some things are best not known_. “Why were you carrying this, may I ask?”

 “Am selling it,” she replied.

  _Not quite the answer I was looking for. Okay. Let's try again._ He tried to hide his slowly building frustration at her. “Where did you find this?”

 After a lengthy pause and looking into the distance, somewhere on the horizon she found the answer she was looking for. “Inside a deathclaw.”

 “Oh, of course,” he said, lightly. _Okay._ He carefully placed the egg in his duffel bag. “I'm not sure if I'm in good hands since you've fought deathclaws and you're still in one piece, or if I should be worried that I'm travelling with someone that willingly engages in CQC with a deathclaw.”

She furrowed her brows. “See-queue-sea…?”

He paused, briefly. “...Close quarters combat. Y'know, fighting up close. Like you do.”

The Courier shook her head. “‘ts okay. I used a gun.”

“Oh, well,” he snorted, “That's very reassuring.”

She left him to wait, to travel to various vendors to exchange the assortment of she carried with her for caps, including the egg that Arcade was carrying. After an hour of waiting around, he spotted The Courier bounding towards him. Half-expecting another bundle of miscellaneous items to be thrown into his arms, he was instead surprised when she held up one arm that was empty. Her right arm, heavily swollen and bruised on one large patch on the upper arm, as well as being somewhat deformed. Arcade winced. “What happened?”

“I fell,” she said, and he frowned. “It kind of hurts.”

 _Kind of?_ “Fell from where, exactly?”

 “The air. A dynamite exploded,” She rummaged around in her belongings with her good hand to conjure up a stimpak, and tried to hand it to him.

“Hang on,” he said, observing the injury and ignoring the stim in her hand. He heard her take in a sharp breath as he touched her arm.“First, I need to realign the bone.”

The Courier was somewhat taken aback by this development. “Bone?” She repeated back to him.

“You've... broken your ulna- _arm bone_. Where the… part of your arm is stuck out. That's your bone.”

“Oh…” She stared at her deformed arm, and bobbed her head slowly as she pieced it together in her head.

“If you just jam a Stimpak in your arm like this, it’ll heal badly and cause more problems in the long run. Got any Med-X?” He asked, and she shook her head. He clicked his tongue. “Well... I'm afraid that this'll hurt, unfortunately.”

Her eyes darted to him, alarmed. “Hurt? Wha-?”

Catching her arm mid-sentence and without warning, Arcade shifted the bone back into place with a swift movement. She gave out a sharp yelp. “Sorry, but at least it's over now,” he said while reaching for the stim. He administered it deftly, The Courier let out a small whimper as she watched her arm. The swelling subsiding and the deep purple of the bruising fading into dull reds and murky yellows over the course of mere seconds. “Do you have another?” he asked.

She shook her head. “Sorry. Last one.”

Wandering the wastes with no medical supplies was unideal, to say the least. “Hmm. It'd be for the best if you could rest it for a while. Do you have any…. cloth?”

“Cloth?” The Courier seemed puzzled.

“So I can make a sling for your arm. Can I take a look at what you're carrying?” She pursed her lips and nodded.

Out of all the apparel she was carrying in her duffel bag, there was a couple of items that she had scavenged that had the fabric to be a makeshift sling. He picked up the one that he thought she'd miss the least. “Mind if I make this into a sling?”

She shrugged, and he tore what was a grimy dress into a respectable bit of fabric, and eventually fashioned a sling out of it to put around The Courier. “...There,” with a tight knot, the sling was in place. “That'll give you a bit of support. I also would suggest getting ahold of some more chems soon. Medicinal chems.”

Her attention drawn away from her sling, she looked at the amount of caps she had, and bit her lip. “Mm. Okay.”

Arcade wondered what she was saving her caps for, but he could safely assume that it was for armour and weapons.

“You could try… looking for some First Aid boxes. They tend to have all kinds of good things in them. They're usually white, and fixed to walls in places. I'll point them out if we see them.”

“Mmm,” she hummed. “Thanks.”

He looked away. “I'm not very good as a doctor if I don't have anything to work with on hand. It's for my own sake too, I suppose.”

 

\---

 

After completing some miscellaneous tasks, clearing bounties for the NCR as well as sending ghouls to… somewhere via space shuttle, The Courier seemed to have amassed a fair amount of caps. She had found herself a couple of tattered pre-war women’s bonnets, and managed to fashion them into one that was in a very decent condition, which she wore proudly.

Arcade's train of thought was still stuck on ghouls in space while following The Courier, and he spaced out. He found his feet walking around the familiar territory of Freeside, making no detours or stops. She headed towards the hoard of securitrons past the King's and the street with the Atomic Wrangler and the Van Graffs, almost skipping.

Her aim was the Strip, he finally realised. For the little that they travelled together, he never pinned her to be the kind that would enjoy the frivolities and attractions of the strip. She seemed reasonably happy just strolling the desert, finding whatever she could find and listening to the radio. People weren’t always as they seemed, he figured. Everyone had their vices, and if hers was gambling or… whatever else was possible in the Strip, so be it.

After speaking to the Securitron and clearing the credit check, they entered.

It hadn't been his first time. He'd been a few times with the Followers, and it was still the same as then. Garish neon lights even in the day, tall buildings, and the masses of people wanting to lose their caps for some reason.

The Courier stood for a moment, mouth agape, caught breathless and stunned by the neon. Though the novelty had faded on him a long time ago, this was most definitely a reaction of someone who had seen the Strip for the first time. They passed by the Securitrons at the Lucky 38, one of which approached The Courier and made her jump. Though he couldn't catch the contents of this conversation, her expression soured. The Courier appeared to have business here, and Arcade wondered what business a person like her would have. It was hard to imagine an eccentric like her going to sit down with the casino bosses, who in his head wore pinstripe suits and smoked pre-war cigars. She shifted nervously by one of the gates, and turned to Arcade, asking him to wait.

“Okay. Just don't be gone long. I sunburn easily.”

The Courier stared at him blankly, almost processing the thought slowly. She took off the hat she was wearing, and reached up to put it on his head. “Oh,” _For the sun_ , he thought. “Huh. Thanks.”

The Courier smiled, patting his head and scampering off inside the Tops. The Strip was a blur of NCR troops and gamblers, some stumbling and some not, along with a smattering of Mr. House's Securitrons.

To pass the time, he read, and after an unspecified length of time, he felt a familiar pat on the shoulder. Looking up from the brim of his new hat, it was none other than The Courier. “Oh. You're back. Everything done?”

She looked up at the Lucky 38, and then back at him. She nodded. “Then lead the way.”

Leaving the strip and Freeside, they headed south-east, steering clear of any deathclaws-ridden roads, thankfully. As they passed various landmarks, she fiddled with her Pip-Boy, and music eventually tinkered out, dispersed with the smooth voice of Mr. New Vegas.

_“In other news: Tops Hotel owner Benny has been killed by an unidentified assailant. His former right-hand man, Swank, consoled mourners….”_

_That's new_ , he thought. “Do you know anything about that?” Arcade asked, and The Courier shrugged. “Just curious, since you were in the Tops earlier.”

She shrugged again and muttered “Even-Stevens,” while eyeing the map on her Pip-Boy. The music played on after the news, as they continued walking in almost silence down the worn and cracked concrete of the road. Occasionally, The Courier would hum along.

 

\---

 

Looking open-mouthed at the solar panels while heading south, The Courier took an interest in HELIOS One. She managed to lie her way in, but found out that it wasn't working.

Her next objective was to fix the array. The issue being that to fix it, someone would have to come face-to-face with very hostile and potentially lethal robots. The Courier took on the job for no apparent reason, only because it was a job that was there that could be done.

He was unable to fathom her logic in thinking, only realising that there was most likely no logic in there. He sighed and followed her down the catacombs of HELIOS One.

In the midst of a scuffle, after swinging furiously at a Protectron, one of its arms and swung and hit The Courier at a high speed. She yelped and stumbled, falling to the floor, cupping her eye. With the velocity that it hit her with, and the sheer weight of metal would have caused a nasty impact, especially near her eye. He began to panic. After dealing with the robot with a few deft shots of plasma, turning it into green goop, he rushed to look at her.

He tilted her head carefully to look at the injury, and a gash was on a bump that was forming on her forehead, just above her eyebrow. She groaned, and tried to bat his hands away with hers, but missed. “Good. Consciousness! Great! That's a start,” He said out loud, trying to quash his feelings of full-on anxiety. _Some disorientation. Maybe minor memory loss. Okay._

As he tried to get a further look at her, she tried to shove him away. “Hey, it’s alright. I'm a doctor,” He tried to reassure her, as gently as he could all while holding back a wry grin. _Typical last words before some medical malpractice._ “Your favourite doctor, Arcade. Let's get you up and to somewhere comfortable, _quantocius quantotius_ ¹...”

She calmed down a little, and let him help her up, stumbling as he did. “Am dizzy,” she murmured as they shuffled down the grey tunneling hallways. As expected of someone built of muscle, she was heavy, but she managed to support perhaps half of most of her own weight.

He remembered passing a bed at one point, and around a corner next to the carcass of a Sentrybot was a fold-out bed attached to the wall. Next to it was a desk and chair, with a lamp that let out a pale light. _Perfect_. Arcade lowered her on the bed, and she winced. Under the light, Arcade was able to examine her further, the skin around her eye had discoloured and bruised uglily. He grimaced. “Do you know where you are?”

She seemed dazed, and held her hand against her head gently. “Uhm…” The Courier paused for a few seconds, and her eyes unfocused. “Sorry. No.”

“Hmm.” He expected as much from a blow on the head. “We were in HELIOS One, trying to fix the array. You tried to steal that guy's job, the idio- _man_ in the sunglasses. One of the Followers, Ignacio, he… was there. Do you remember that?”

“No…” she furrowed her brows, and looked down.

 _Okay. Loss of short term memory._ “That's okay,” He said out loud, but mostly to himself. “Do you know your name?”

“Courier,” she stated.

He bit his tongue. “Where are you from?”

“Uh, Goodsprings.”

 _Some sign of long term memory. Promising._ “Might seem like a redundant question to ask, but how do you feel?”

She groaned, wincing. “Stuff’s loud. Stuff’s moving 'n I'm not. I… wanna be sick.”

He nodded. “Feel free. Just try to avoid me in your trajectory, if you can.”

No strange fluids were leaking out of places that there weren't meant to be, no cerebrospinal fluid coming from her nose… and she was as responsive as he'd usually expect her to be. He took a good look at her eyes, just in case, and she squinted at him. _Pupils Equal_ . He covered one of her eyes, the pupil of her other expanded… _Reacting to Light_. He let himself relax. “You've hit your head pretty badly, but from what I can see, nothing that seems too serious. You're experiencing something that I would call a concussion.”

“D'y'have stims?” She slurred.

“You probably do. I'll see if those help.”

After administering the stims, the swelling and and bruising seemed to go down a little. “You should get some rest,” he said. “I'll keep watch.”

Without saying a word, she was lying down on the bed, and in minutes she was snoring.

Exactly four hours had passed, flicking through a magazine and some books, until she jolted awake. She sat up quickly, and Arcade almost jumped. “How are you feeling?”

She scanned her surrounding, sounding somewhat bewildered. The skin around her eye was mottled in shades of purple. “...I was asleep.”

He slowly closed his book. “Well, yes, you were. Do you know what day of the week it is?”

She chewed on her lip for a moment. “...The one after Wednesday.”

 _Close enough._ “And do you know where we are?” He asked, trying not to seem too hopeful.

She thought, very hard. He was worried that her lip was going to start to bleed. “...HELIOS One!” she gasped, as if it suddenly came to her. She then stared at Arcade, puzzled, as if to say: _Why did I fall asleep in HELIOS One?_

“You injured your head, and got a concussion. You needed to rest for a bit,” Arcade put his book away and adjusted his glasses. In response, she hummed and stopped digging her teeth into her lower lip. “I expect your memory to be a bit hazy. Do you remember anything about it?”

She shook her head. “Didn't remember, last time.”

 “...Do you regularly get head injuries?” Arcade asked, pushing up his glasses.

“Oh! I was shot in the head! In Goodsprings,” her tone was characteristically chipper.

“Oh. Well.” _That… explains a lot,_ he didn't say. Goodsprings, and shot in the head for some reason went together in his head; he couldn't pin down why, so he quickly dismissed it. “How's your head?”

She felt at her head gently with one hand, flinching when she touched the bump that had formed. “Hurts a bit. But not bad.”

Arcade let out a small breath of relief. “You’ll mostly have some headaches for the next day or so. I'm lucky- I mean, _you're lucky_ that you're tough. I'm ready to go if you are, but I wouldn't stop you if you wanted to rest for longer. You probably need it.”

The Courier swung her legs off the side of the bed. “No, let's go. It's all creepy here.”

Arcade nodded. “I agree.”

As they gutted the place of rogue machinery, and The Courier tinkered at the terminal at the top.  She set the array to send power to the entire region. “That way it's fair,” she justified; he respected her actions, since it was her brute strength and sacrifice that had let them get to the terminal. He was unwilling to argue with a freshly-injured person, and she didn't speak of ARCHIMEDES to the NCR. He wasn't even sure if she knew anything about ARCHIMEDES; _ignorance is bliss_ , he thought. Ignacio seemed to be thankful for her actions, giving her an assortment of medical supplies and a book as a token of appreciation. In the meantime, Ignacio made eye contact with Arcade too many times, and each time was awkward.

“So, erm,” Ignacio started. Arcade swallowed, focusing his attention on The Courier who was bothering Fantastic, again. “Is she your, like…?”

“No,” he said, bluntly. “We just travel together.”

“Huh. I could never imagine you travelling with someone…” He trailed off, his tone being perhaps a little bitter. _I thought you weren’t a people-person and preferred being alone_. Ignacio didn’t say it, but he knew this words were somewhere in his tone.

“I mean, I'm mostly there to patch her up,” he tried to downplay it, whatever Ignacio thought _it_ was. “She has a tendency to be a bit reckless,” he added on, just as an element of truth.

 “Hmm,” Ignacio just _hmmed_ him, and they lapsed into an awkward silence, one that Arcade was too uncomfortable in to break. The Courier was still with Fantastic, playfully punching him in the arm as he looked genuinely troubled. _Please help me, Courier_ , he thought, staring at her. _I don't want to talk to my ex._ As she caught sight of his secretly troubled expression, she bounded towards him. “Arcade, there's somewhere good around here, I think.”

He pretended to seem surprised. “Oh?”

She pinched the fabric on the sleeve of his lab coat, and tugged. “It's still the day. Let's go.”

He nodded, secretly thankful. “Alright. Lead the way,” he chirped, as she lead them out of the crypt that was the basement of HELIOS one.

 

\---

 

As they left the building and he managed to catch her eye, he thanked her. “I didn't think I'd be in any uncomfortable situations while I was out here, but thank you for getting me out of them. I appreciate it.” 

“Oh. 'ts okay. Y’guys not friends, or?”

Arcade looked at his feet. “I suppose we were friends? Kind of. Actually, I don't know. He was my ex. We didn't part on the best terms.”

She nodded and hummed, in a way that communicated a sense of understanding, as if she was saying _we've all been there_ , without words _._ He was grateful, but he doubted that people really did push people away and break their hearts because they used to be part of an organisation that was undeniably, bad.

He kicked at the dirt as he walked, his mind stuck on his own pathetic history of a love-life. If he wasn't old enough to know better, he would be sulking. Instead, he was a little depressed. The Courier switched on the radio, and Mr. New Vegas’ smooth yet tinny voice echoed out of it, creating a pleasant escape from his own thoughts.

_“A package courier found shot in the head near Goodsprings has reportedly regained consciousness and made a full recovery…”_

“Oh,” He turned towards her. “Hang on. The package courier shot in the head in Goodsprings. Was that you by any chance?” 

She nodded and grinned. Arcade gave a lopsided smile back. “Well, if I knew that I was in the presence of a local celebrity, I would have brought you something to sign.”

She laughed, and gained a little skip in her step as she hummed along cheerfully to _Johnny Guitar_. Alongside the hoard medical supplies, The Courier received a Big Book of Science as a token of appreciation from Ignacio. Heading northwest, she read the book while walking, mouthing each word as she read it. After a while, the task of reading while walking proved to be too difficult for The Courier, and she put it away. They continued, seemingly aiming for a certain point by the way that she checked her wrist often.

After a fair distance, the radio had been turned off, and she had wordlessly handed him three tablets of Rad-X, which equated to a strong dose. Arcade looked at her strangely. "You want me to take these?" he said, eyeing up the powdery pills in his hand. The Courier responded with a nod. His eyes flickered to the contraption around her wrist. "... It's not as if your Geiger counter hasn't responded to any radiation yet."  
  
She shrugged in response, and scattered some pills into her hands, then tossing them into her mouth. He narrowed his eyes, but swallowed the pills with some water. He grimaced as he heard a crunch from The Courier as she chewed on the pills, and washed it down with some Sunset Sarsaparilla. After but a few steps, the Geiger counter within her Pip-Boy crackled. "Have you been here before?" he asked.  
  
She shrugged again. The path that they came down lead to something like a large crater, and a unpleasant smell lingered the area. Approaching the crater crawled out a beast, no, _creature_ from within it. An abomination that crawled on four feet with a bulging, lumbering body and disturbingly human head, formed from pink flesh. It tendrils poured out from what looked like it's mouth, which curled and flailed as it hurled gunk at them. It was followed by its pack.  
  
After several fires from his plasma defender and a many swipes from The Courier's tire iron, there were around five dead centaurs around the edge of this crater. He watched The Courier begin to search their bodies, baffled yet amused by her zeal. "I don't think you'll find anything of interest on those things. They don't even have the sentience to think to pick up a few caps or bobby pins."  
  
The Courier scrunched her nose up in frustration, and looked towards the satellite dish on the hill to the north. As the adrenaline of the battle faded, he noticed the smell again. This time it was more distinct, the stench of something that had rotted... _of the centaurs?_ He wondered. Can FEV cause the flesh to rot, like the necrotising flesh of the ghouls? Even then, they didn't smell like this, hell, he never noticed any smell with Beatrix-  
  
Catching a glimmer of light from the corner of his eye, the reflection of sunlight bouncing off metal, Arcade looked towards the centre of the crater. "Oh," he said emptily.  
  
Two bodies, human bodies, were lying at the centre of the crater, the possible victims of the centaurs they had just killed. The stench was obvious, and it was the smell of rotting flesh festering under the Mojave sun. Nothing could be identified from them at this point - other than the power armour they were wearing, the metal reflecting the sun's light. T-51b, he mentally noted. _Brotherhood of Steel Paladins..._

His gut twisted with unease to see them rotting beyond recognition. _What a shame_ , he thought, the weapon in his hand hanging uselessly by his side.

  
The Courier bolted towards the bodies as soon as she saw them, taking the more pragmatic approach to the situation. Stripping the corpses of their belongings, she slowly came back with two laser rifles, two suits of power armour, and some form of holotape which she immediately pocketed. Too heavy even for The Courier's build, she haphazardly took the two suits of power armour and fashioned a single better one, and did the same with the laser rifles.

As quickly as the power armor was stowed away, she took out a shovel and began throwing soil on the bodies. “I'll help,” Arcade said.

 

Shoving the spade into the hard dirt, the pair of them managed to cover the two bodies quickly, no thanks to the strength and speed at which The Courier dug the soil. Trying to match her pace, Arcade was exhausted afterwards. As he wiped the sweat from his brow, The Courier looked up at the satellite on the hill to the north. After some contemplation, she continued in the opposite direction. While walking, she looked at the holotape transcript on her Pip-Boy, mouthing each word slowly as she read them on the screen.

 

\---

 

As nightfall came, they found refuge in an old caravan where they ate Pre-War junk food. She dug out the power armour she had acquired earlier, and her expression soured as she struggled to put it on. Arcade failed to hide his amusement, and he gave a quiet chuckle. "Oh, you won't be able to wear that, not without training."

The Courier still tried to shove her leg into the opening on the back. “It's cool though,” she said, almost whining. 

He could smile, only able to half hide his grimace. He had thought the same thing, far in the past, back before when he needed glasses to see normally. “The only people who use power armour around these parts are the shut-in hoarders you took that from and actual fascists. I’m not sure how _cool_ that is.”

She pursed her lips in response. “But it’ll make me strong.”

"I suppose. I’d suggest stripping it apart and using the metal from it to make your own armour, stripping it of its cell, the conduits, joint servos… waste recycling unit, and all that. Like the NCR rangers. The metal is high quality, pre-war material so it's good even if it's used like that. Although you’d be sacrificing the hydraulics system that actually helps your strength."  
  
"Hydra-licks?"  
  
"Mm-hm," He hummed, and continued. "It's pretty impressive, waste conversion, hydraulics, all in one place. Impressive as a piece of technology, I mean. It’s a shame that it was used in this way to, y’know. Terrorise and kill people."  
  
The Courier bit her lip, feeling on the inside of it with her hand. Her knuckles knocked against the metal with sharp taps. "Where's the hydra inside?"  
  
He paused mid sentence, with his mouth agape. _Pre-War technology, Hydra was invented by the Legion..._ "It's... not hydra.” For the first time in a while, he was rendered almost speechless. “Using... Liquid. To make lifting heavy stuff feel less heavy, because the... liquid lifts it for you. Kinda. From _hudraulikos_ , from _hudro_ ‘water’ and _aulos_ ‘pipe’.”  
  
The Courier stared at him blankly. “Y’What?”  
  
"C-complicated science stuff. Anyway, there's a certain knack to using it, and moving with the hydraulics. The suit feels heavy but your movements end up feeling light, if that makes sense. It takes a lot of getting used to, and it’s very different to moving normally. It'd be no better than just a heavy suit of medieval armour if you wore it without the necessary training, if you've ever seen what those are like."  
  
"...Where'd y'get training?"  
  
"Uh, where did I?!” He almost choked on his saliva. “Good question. I... never had. Or have had. Power armor training, I mean, Because I don't know how to wear it."  
  
The Courier nodded. “Huh. Okay.” Scarily, she had bought into his obvious lie.  
  
"But uh, I'm not really aware of anyone who could give your training, outside the Brotherhood of Steel, wherever they might be.” He fiddled with his plasma defender, pretending that it needed adjusting. "Even then, I don't think they would happy to let in a outsider just waltz in and give you a 101 on using the most powerful armour there is out there."  
  
The Courier scrunched her eyes and chewed on her lip. "They shoot lasers from their eyes."  
  
“They… might do. Maybe someone else might know. If we run into someone, we can ask them if they can teach you. There's a lot of people out there in the wasteland."  
  
\---

 

They spent a few days making their way back to Freeside, The Courier still lugging around her new suit of power armour, albeit it being completely unwearable for her. She looked at the tall walls of the Old Mormon fort, and said that it was time for them to part ways. Some part of him was a little disappointed, but he couldn't blame her. If he had to travel with him, he'd eventually get bored too. “Oh, I was hoping my charm would win you over...” he joked, combing his fingers through his hair with one hand, which granted him a chuckle from her in response. “But I guess it was never meant to be. Are you sure you want me to go?” 

She nodded, “Need to sort out some stuff,” she explained, but not explaining what the _sorting out_ and the _stuff_ was or entailed. She took back most of the items she had made him carry. Some Abraxo and Wonderglue, some weapons he never used, leaving all but some odd pieces of apparel and food. 

“Am I keeping the hat?” He asked, and she only responded with a grin. “I guess I am. I'll be here if you need anything. _Pax tecum_. ” 

She waved at him, and scampered deeper into Freeside.

The Old Mormon Fort was just like as he'd left it, its tall sandy wall and canvas tents. His little corner in his tent was just as he left it, his research was on standby, as fruitless as it was. _To be a cog in the system again_ , he thought, poking some cacti with a scalpel. _A cog on the floor with no use._  

As he stepped outside for his routine stroll, he met eyes with Julie. He gave her a nod, and she smiled back. “Good to see you back, Arcade.” 

“You too. Anything different here?”

She shrugged. “Not particularly. Nice hat, by the way,” Julie quipped, flashing him a toothy smile.

He frowned. “I think you mean _bonnet_.” She laughed, and Arcade smiled back. “But thank you, Julie.”

  
\---

 

The days passed slowly, and yet at the same time it was as if they all blurred together into one. Though it was familiar and safe, the Old Mormon Fort was boring. The highlights of his days were eavesdropping on other people’s conversations, and seeing what the old grape vine had to offer. 

It seemed as if more happened when she was around. _The Kings had made peace with the local NCR authorities,_ he heard. _The Garretts’ place has some new staff, and someone they hired is shaking down the locals who owe them caps, some woman with bright orange hair, tough as nails. She had this dog with her, looked like the King’s dog, Rex…_  

He kept a straight face, hiding the fact that he was obviously eavesdropping and hearing what his former travelling companion was up to. After a while, news of her died down, and he even heard a group of children ask another Follower where the _‘nice lady with the orange hair and her robot doggy who got a rat for us’_ went. _Outbound to the wastes_ , Arcade thought wistfully.

He didn’t count, but he figured it was around a fortnight later when new rumours surfaced again. _Someone had entered the Lucky 38, for the first time._ While passing a tent early one morning, he heard part of a conversation, and he stopped.“Saw her go into the Lucky 38, I did”, a man said, hiccuping, “Wild-lookin’ young lady with orange hair, you know her?”

From outside, Arcade swallowed. Another voice hummed within the tent. “Mm, doesn’t sound familiar,” A woman’s voice said, half-distracted with whatever she was tending him with, a new doctor whose name Arcade hadn’t remembered yet. 

It was the next morning when The Courier was back in the Old Mormon fort, wearing a cowboy hat, like the first time she had met him. She beamed as she saw him again, and asked him to come along again, if he wasn't busy, of course.

“Oh, back in your good graces again? I knew you'd see the light,” he joked, but was relieved. At least by her side, he’d see something that wasn’t the same adobe walls and canvas tents.

Once they left the Old Mormon fort and Freeside, and more importantly out of earshot of anyone else, he asked her a question. “You know, I heard a strange rumour that someone was let into the Lucky 38. Do you know anything about that?” 

The Courier scratched her neck, “No?” She said with little conviction, as if it was phrased like another question. 

He hummed. “Well, I heard from one person that she had bright orange hair. Do you know anyone like that?”

Her expression twisted into one of uncomfortable guilt. “Mm, well. Yeah... Maybe it was me. Sorry.” 

He could only smile. “No need to apologise. I just thought it was interesting. What business did you have there, and how in the hell did you get in?” 

She pulled out what looked like a silvery poker chip from inside somewhere in the chest of her armour. “This,” she said, shaking the chip in her hand. “Is important.”

Arcade looked at the disc. “...Mind if I take a look?” He asked, and she handed it to him. It was warm, but it cooled quickly he held it. Though unremarkable at a distance, up close it and underneath his fingertips it had intricate engravings on both sides, an artifact that could only exist from technology before the war. He had seen nothing like it, even in his years of reading books and observing holotapes. He gently handed it back to her. “What does it do, exactly?”

She tucked it away in a pocket near her chest, and patted it. “Important things,” she declared, but then she spoke more quietly. “...But I don't really get it. Mr. House wants me to… do things.”

“Huh. _The_ Mr. House…” _Someone lives an interesting life, unlike some people,_ he thought. “What other antics have you been up to?”

“Hmm,” she murmured, looking a little sad. “A lot,” she answered, not elaborating what _a lot_ entailed. From how she looked, it was a subject that wasn’t worth pressing. “You?”

“Oh, not a lot at all. Very, very boring. So, where are we heading to?”

She shrugged. “Factory,” was all she said, and Arcade followed her lead.

 

\---

 

The area near the factory was thick with Fiends, high on all sorts of chems and wielding all kinds of weapons. After resting at an abandoned shack they were ambushed as soon as they left the door, and the pair of them amassed a pile of bodies near the entrance.

As she looted them for their weapons, gear and chems, Arcade frowned as she handed some vials of jet to him. “Why do you want to keep their chems?”

She shook her head. “Caps,” she explained, pulling out her shovel, then pushing the tip of it in the hard dirt with her foot.

Alongside the chems and weapons, she had also handed him a set of raider armour, one that had been fashioned into one of almost perfect quality after combining it with many others. A mismatch of clothes that were combined to make a some kind of armour, leather straps, metal plates and spikes.

It looked easier to move around in than his doctor's coat, and more suitable for the kind of activities he got up to around The Courier. 

He scanned their surroundings, and with nobody except for The Courier digging a very large hole, he shifted to the shadow the house cast and changed his clothes.

He wasn't sure what he as expecting, as he pulled the long gloves onto his arms. It was better that the lab coat, but… he fiddled with his bootlaces. His legs were well-protected with the spiked armour on the trouser parts, but his chest was exposed except for a few straps crossing his chest. He couldn't see himself at the moment, but it was likely that he looked ridiculous, even more so with the bonnet. He was too old to care about how he looked and what first impression he made. Function over form, and more importantly he wasn't looking to impress any eligible gentlemen of the wastes. Regardless, it was more easy to move in and somehow provided more protection than his lab coat.

The Courier was still digging the dirt, and had made a hole of a considerable size. Once the leather straps across his chest were comfortably adjusted, he took out his shovel and helped her.

When the hole was deep enough, the bodies were lowered in and covered in dirt again. She patted the mound of where the hole was with the end of her shovel.

Sweat travelled down his chest. “So, do you bother burying everyone?” he asked. In response, The Courier hummed in a tone that he perceived as affirmative. “Why everyone? 

Her brows furrowed. “Because they died?” she answered, all while trying to level the ground where there she had been digging. “Dead people… need to go to the soil,” she explained, as if that alone would suffice.

Inquisitive by nature, Arcade want to pry further. “...Because they’ll fester, or…?”

She shook her head, stuck her shovel into the ground, and rested her arms on the handle. “If the body doesn't go in the soil, the body can't return to the earth. And if your body doesn't return to the earth, it can't move on.”

He had stopped digging too. “Move on…?”

The Courier rested her head on her arms. “They’ll be left wandering forever. If they're returned, they… become one with it. The soil, which helps the grass grow, for the brahmin, who eat it. To us, who eat the brahmin,” she recited, “Everything is one, that way.”

It was a strangely spiritual and philosophical way of thinking, coming from The Courier of all people. Arcade was curious. “Do you ever leave any souls to wander?”

She shook her head. “Wandering souls only harm the people around it. A soul pays for its sins in other ways. It's just... right to return a soul to the earth.”

Ideas of sin, soul-body duality, combined with the sense of spirituality… A complete mishmash of ideas and concepts from different religions and beliefs. It sounded like a tribalistic practice that stemmed from the custom of burial…

Arcade was no anthropologist by any means, but he enjoyed learning, the origins of belief systems was something that often got lost to time, and he found it interesting. “Is that what they believe in Goodsprings?”

She shifted, “Mm. No. Just something... I believe in.” The Courier stood upright instead of leaning on her shovel. 

“It's a nice thing to believe in. That… all life is intrinsically connected.” 

“But it is? We're talking like this. We're connected too.”

He paused, staring at the soil beneath him. “... I suppose,” he grinned, despite not quite understanding it.  

She nodded and smiled, stowing her shovel away. Arcade thought of Plato and a possible afterlife, and together they headed to the factory.

 

\--

 

The air was musty, and the beams of light that snuck into the interior illuminated the dust in the air like fine glitter. The decay that was within building made him feel anxious. It wasn’t as if it was going to cave in and collapse onto itself, if it was going to do that it would’ve happened years ago. He sighed, a little disgruntled, starting to get bored of waiting around. Any time he’d walk he’d make a faint series of dull clinks every time his boot would hit the ground. 

“I said I had reservations about being treated like a pack brahmin,” he sighed, his duffel making another clink as he rested against a stack of empty crates. “So, do you really need this many bottles?”

“We do,” she said with a huff, digging around crates and tossing out all the empty bottles of Sunset Sarsaparilla to the floor. 

Their journey had lead them to the abandoned Sunset Sarsaparilla factory, where her apparent objective was to find as many bottles of the beverage as possible. “All 48 bottles?” He asked.

“All 48 bottles,” she parroted back 

“They’re very heavy, you know.” _And it’s not as if I’m wearing power armour_ , he almost said but bit his tongue. 

“Well, ‘m carrying some too. And Annabelle. I can’t hold many when I’m carrying her.” 

“Annabelle?”

From her duffel bag, she pulled out a rocket launcher and placed it on an empty crate of Sunset Sarsaparilla, patting the top of it as she were a beloved pet. “Annabelle,” she announced.

Arcade stared at it, and then at her, eyes wide. She had pulled it out like a performer pulling a cap from behind someone’s ear. “I won’t ask.”

She shrugged. “At the big dish, near where we fought the… cen… thingies. Tentacle men. Where I found the power armour. It was there.” 

His voice had risen without him noticing. “You went up Black Mountain? By yourself?” 

“Mmn-nnn,” she shook her head. “Boone was there, so was Rexie. Met Raul too.”

The rapid-fire delivery of names surprised him. He wondered if they were names that were mentioned before, or ones he was supposed to remember. “Boone, Rexie, Raul…?”

“Boone’s good at shooting. Rexie’s The King’s dog. He’s made of robots. Raul was in nightkin jail...” 

“Oh,” of course. Rex, for short. So the dog that was with her in Freeside was the King’s dog after all. “Wait, hang on. Nightkin jail?” 

“It’s okay. We got him out,” and the topic was brushed off lightly, just like that. 

 _That doesn’t …_ “Where is he now?”

“Back in his shack. He fixed my hat there,” She grinned, tapping the brim of her cowboy hat. It was a little worn but definitely well-loved. 

Always the eccentric. “Mm. What about Rex-Rexie?” 

“Back with the king, ‘cos he’s better now. We got him a new brain ‘cos his old one was bad. Had to go all the way to Jacobstown…” 

“Jacobstown?”

“Mmm. Doctor there is good at stuff like, dogs. And head things.”

“Doc Henry…” Arcade said fondly, without even thinking. To him, it was just _Doc_ while he grew up. He looked up to him then, and he did even now.

“Yeah! Yeah… Y’know him?”

“Yeah- Uh,” _Back when I was part of fascistic paramilitary organisation. Which was undeniably bad._ “I suppose. kind of. I know of his work, you know how doctors are. We... All know of each other.”

The Courier just pursed her lips and nodded. Arcade needed something to work off his anxiousness, so he tried to change the subject. “Uh, mind if I have a drink?” She nodded, and he opened a bottle of Sunset Sarsaparilla with an opener, unlike with his teeth like The Courier. The bottle hissed as it fizzed, and he took a sip of the sweet, tepid liquid. He grimaced.

When he next caught The Courier’s eye, he murmured “Catch,” to her, as he flicked a bottle cap in her direction. She clasped her hands around it, and as she opened them to peer inside, she smiled. “That’s... ten,” she called to him, as she held it up between her fingers. The iridescent blue star on it occasionally catching whatever light was in the dim factory. Her smile widened as it glimmered. “Am looking for fifty. 

She turned to him, but he glanced away. “Mm-hm. I noticed you picking them up,” he drank more of the tepid, sweet liquid. “I'll keep an eye out for them.” 

Rocking on her heels, she held up the cap and looked at it, and then at him. She thanked him and he shrugged, chugging the bottle of lukewarm soda in his hand.

 

——

 

They travelled south, and The Courier had switched her cowboy hat with a baseball cap, and then to a bandana.

Further south they encountered a horde of Sentrybots and Mister Gutsys, which the two of them managed to deal with with few hiccups. A few Stims and a doctor's bag later, they encountered what looked like some broken machinery at a distance, perhaps what the robots were guarding. 

Moving closer, it was an aircraft. “A vertibird. Interesting,” he thought out loud. “It's been a long time since I've seen one of these.”

A common sight from his early childhood. Daisy would hop out of one as it got refueled at the main base of Navarro, and she would sneak Arcade in to show him the cockpit. Had his eyesight not been as poor, he could've been a Vertibird pilot like her, she had said. 

He had just been a child, small enough to sit on her lap and fiddle with the controls. In short, it was a very long time ago.

“This is a verty-bird?” The Courier asked. 

“Mm-hm.” The XVB02, to be precise. Vertibird was only its nickname.

She touched the metal hull of the grounded aircraft, warmed by the sun. “Poseidon… D’y’think she came from near there?”

“Maybe. I mean, that'd-” _make sense_ , he almost added until he caught himself. How did she know about Poseidon? “Erm. I mean, that… doesn't make much sense to me. I'm not sure what you mean.” 

She continued, completely unaware of his blunder. “The Enclave had these. Near Poseidon. The oil rig.”

“You know about the Enclave!?” He yelled. His tone was far too pointed for someone who wasn't meant to be part of the Enclave. _God, if I'm not the worst at this_. He bit his tongue, and attempted to backpedal. “Uh, what are they like? I haven't…. heard much about them.” 

The Courier nodded, stroking the metal. “Bad people. Enclave almost made everyone die. It was w’a special Eff-Ee-Vee. The Chosen One stopped ‘em, and made Poseidon explode, ‘n saved Arroyo and the Vault 13 people.”

“Huh,” was all he could add. He was a little baffled.

“When they took the people from Vault 13 away, they took ‘em in the Verty-Birds. Like this one.” She patted the surface of the aircraft, gently. 

“That's… an interesting story,” Arcade said. The Courier nodded, looking up at the sky, as if the Vertibird had more in its flock that would come back for it. “Who did you hear it from?” he asked. 

“...Don't remember. Someone from a long time ago.”

He would have asked her a little more, had he not just revealed some sensitive information about himself, again. He was lucky that she wasn't intelligent, no offense to her. Any person who was a little more quick on the spot, or anyone who was even a bit suspicious of him would have sussed it out. His hands felt sweaty, and it wasn’t just from the sun.

As the sun climbed up the sky, they continued east, and Arcade imagined sewing his lips shut so he could never say anything ever again.

\---

 

The anxiety started to settle in as he realised that they were continuing to head east for a while. “Hey...” he tried to say as they were approaching, but she either ignored him or didn't hear him over the radio blaring out.

She stopped to let down a man that'd been crucified, who hobbled off as he hopped down near Cottonwood Cove. She continued towards the water, and Arcade stuck closely to her.

The Legionaries weren't hostile towards them, they gave her very strange looks, and he spotted one who shot her an especially dirty look, but besides that their machetes remained fastened to their waists, not waved in their arms. 

He swallowed as she approached the _cursor_ , Caesar's courier, at the dock of Cottonwood Cove. This particular gentleman's nose scrunched up as he remarked that he was surprised that a woman had come here. 

 _True to Caesar_ he had said, pronouncing Caesar like _Kai-zar_ . He was pale, with paler eyes and dark hair; he might've been attractive, but there was something about wearing leather armour over a old sports kit and skirt that made a man devastatingly unattractive. _You sound and look like an idiot,_ he would say if he had less restraint. And if the other man wasn't expertly trained in hand-to-hand combat, and hacking people into little and littler pieces with a machete. 

He mentioned his surprise that _she_ was the one invited for an audience with the _Caesar_ , as she presented a small coin to him, know as the Mark of Caesar. _Wait, what?_

The Courier seemed only slightly uncomfortable as the man in the so-called Roman uniform eyed up the coin, then eyed up her. Arcade was thankful that he barely gave a glance to him as he tried to hide his almost-descent into full-blown panic.

“You're with her?” The cursor asked him, barely looking up from the coin. 

Arcade turned to The Courier, and she nodded. “Uh… Yeah,” he said hesitantly.

The boat ride was silent and uncomfortable, a group of Legionaries rowed the boat in unison while eyeing up The Courier, and occasionally him. Looking down, his hands were coated in a thin sheen of cold sweat.

More importantly he wanted to ask The Courier, _Where in Hell did you get your hands on that thing?_! _What on Earth have you gotten yourself into?!_ He held back the urge to feel for his plasma defender, and his anxieties ate him up from the inside.

 _This might be it,_ he thought. _She might know I have associations with the Enclave, somehow. She’s finally pieced it together. She’s selling me to Caesar as my punishment for being bad. Or her lack of intellect is finally going to get me killed._

He looked at her, and she sitting with her arms on her lap, twiddling her thumbs. When their eyes met, she looked more than nervous and shrugged, smiling at him. _WHAT DOES THAT MEAN_ , he desperately wanted to yell. 

The final straw was when The Courier turned over her belongings to the Legion soldier as she entered the gates at Fortification Hill. For the sake of seeming natural, Arcade did in turn, handing his lifeline to the Legion soldier. _Fantastic. And are we going to crawl out of hell by clinging onto Satan's balls in time for sundown?_  

Away from the gate, he walked briskly so he was next to her and spoke lowly into her ear. “I'd like to know, _Courier_ , what your plans are here.”

“Huh?” She said, perhaps a little too loudly.

 “You were invited to the Fort. Caesar's Fort. By Caesar. You gave up your weapons to him, and I'm not as capable with my bare fists as you are. In any altercation I'll be as good as the people strung up on the crosses, hell, I’ll be on the cross if my luck finally runs out, and that's assuming I'm unaligned with the Legion. If you're about to shake hands with Caesar and be best friends with him… Either way I'm leaving.”

 “Mmn, no, no.” She quietened her voice. “The bunker on the fort. I need… T’get in. I know Caesar's… bad. but I need to pretend am friends with Caesar. ‘Cos there's loads here.”

Shorthand for _because there's loads more people here than my brute force alone can take out_. “Am gonna go to Caesar, to the bunker, back to him, then out. Promise.”

“... Okay,” He sighed. “Next time, I’d appreciate a warning before I hold hands with you and waltz through all nine circles of Hell, playing Vergil to your Dante.”

“Ah. Erm, Sorry,” she replied sheepishly, scratching her neck. “I'll tell you stuff... in a bit.”

He waited outside as The Courier entered spoke to Caesar. Two people were fighting in the makeshift arena, one with a machete and one without. Legionaries-to-be played in the distance, in their miniature costumes and chasing each other. There was one lone woman in the vicinity other than The Courier, a slave who was making healing powder. Her eyes wouldn't meet his, and he felt uneasy. He wanted to leave as soon as he could. 

She stepped out of Caesar's tent, and flashed a familiar silver chip at him, as well as a grin. Out of earshot of any of the Legion, she quietly mentioned destroying Mr. House’s bunker with an obvious wink. He wasn't too sure what that meant. They went down to the weather monitoring station where on entry they were temporarily allowed their weapons back.

Upon opening the doors leading down marked with the symbol of the Lucky 38, a monitor flickered awake with the image of Robert Edwin House displayed on the screen, one who talked to her. She nodded along to what he had to say. 

Her Geiger counter crackled quietly as they navigated the narrow metallic corridors, and she passed him a dose of Rad-X that he swallowed. The dull taps of two pairs of feet treading on metal flooring, and the whirr of robotics reminded him of back when they were at HELIOS one.

“There's stuff for Securitrons down here. Caesar wants me to get rid, House wants me to… Not get rid. Something else,” She explained. Arcade nodded, pretending that he understood. 

The corridors crisscrossed, and after dealing with an array of robots, they approached a dead-end room with her objective, and within it machine that had a slot the size of the poker chip.

The Courier scanned the room, then fiddled with the silvery poker chip in her hand, tilting it and observing how it reflected the light.

“The Legion…. Aren't good,” she eventually said.

 _That's one way to put it,_ he thought. But he listened, minus any usual quips.

“I went to Nipton. It smelt like petrol. Loads of stuff burnt, loads of ‘em on crosses... and they broke Boxcar's legs. I searched all over, and there was only one other person. A powder-ganger. Just him.” Her voice became quieter as she talked, still looking at the chip. She fiddled with the chip in her hand. 

“Everyone was almost-dead and dead. On the crosses, or just…” she trailed off, still handling the chip. “I saw them there, Legion, and a man with a dog-hat,” _Legion Vexillarius_ , he thought. _A stand-barer…_ “They said to me that I should tell everyone, what they did there…” 

He wasn't going to pretend that he knew what to say, or how to be a comforting presence. Instead, he listened. 

“Couldn't do anything, then.” she said, looking down.“There was… five of em. Coulda taken then if I wanted but… I was so scared. Couldn’t move. So I just said I would.”

Other than the whirr of machinery and computer parts, it was silent. She thumbed the edges of the metal chip. “I'm sorry,” was all that he could only manage.

“If… NCR wasn't so busy. Like in Forlorn Hope and Bitter Springs... They might've stopped it. Or done something, but.”

Her orange hair fell across her bandana in loose curls, and her ginger brows furrowed.

“Mr. House isn't… Good.” She trailed off, uncomfortably. “I don't want to help anyone, but…” She trailed off, her voice getting quieter. “Not helping is also bad.” 

“You know that if you sit back, something worse might happen,” Arcade tried to add, in an attempt to be helpful. 

She nodded. “Mmm. I want to do something, something good.”  

 _That makes the two of us_ , he thought. “Not everyone can be a revolutionary. We can’t all change the world. All you can do is what you think is the best, even if your options aren’t… ideal.”

She turned the chip in her fingers, processing what he had just said. Arcade noticed the ambient crackles of her Geiger counter, and took out the bottle of Rad-X he was carrying, popping a pill in his mouth. “Rad-X?” He asked her, the bottle rattling as he shook it to catch her attention. She looked up, tilted her head up and opened her mouth. Arcade tossed a pill in her general direction and she caught it in her mouth, crunching as she bit down on it. He winced. “I still don’t know how you do that.” 

“’ts not bad,” she mumbled around the wet powder in her mouth. “Tastes weird. I like it.”

He frowned. “I’ve been wondering how you did that too, but I was thinking about how you manage to catch it in your mouth each time.” 

“VATS,” she said, tonguing her gums, and without any further explanation. Arcade shook his head. Her attention went back to the poker chip. “There was a robot man in the Tops, and he said that I could have New Vegas, because I had this.” She turned it in her hand.

“...Robot man?”

“Securitron. But… not Mr. House's. Benny had him before he got shot. He said if I disable House, and get him in, I could… do things, instead.” 

Arcade stared at her. _That one pet project of one of the Followers that went awry that no-one liked to talk about._ “Huh. That's pretty impressive.”

“I think could make it better, at least a bit. But I dunno...”

 _Our revolutionary_ …? Arcade thought. “What is it that you don't know?”

“I… don't understand everything. Don't think I understand enough to make it work good.”

An independent Vegas, he thought. Out of House, Kimball, Caesar…  None of them had the interests of the people of New Vegas in mind, only their own selfish goals.

“You may be a little… unconventional with how you think, but it’s not as if you’re completely useless,” he winced after he heard himself talk, and The Courier looked at him blankly. “I mean- what I mean is… That what you're saying makes sense. House doesn't care much other than his own interests and keeping the Strip as it is, and NCR is spread thin as it is and here the basis of expanding its resources. Legion would just… Yeah. You've seen what the Legion would do. There are a lot of idiots in charge out here. So I don't think it'd be bad for you to try.”

The words that came out his mouth weren't any better. She was still looking down, fiddling with the chip in her hand. _Nice work, Arcade._ He told himself. _Implying that she’s another one of the idiots in charge. Great._ He was never any good at this… encouragement kind of thing, or cheering people up. Arcade scratched his neck.

“Look, I’ve seen you in action. You’re capable of a lot, and you have more good intentions than anyone else who has, or wants to take over the strip. Would Kimball, House, or Caesar give their hat to a Follower just so he wouldn’t get a little sunburnt?”

She smiled a little, and he smiled back. “You survived a bullet to the head. Believe me, I know the odds of surviving major head trauma, and they’re slim; that’s including the people that never regain consciousness or use of certain parts of their body like they used to. If you’re out here on both feet going about your business after that, anything’s possible,” the logic was flawed to say the least, but he hoped that it'd be enough to convince her.

“I don’t remember anything before Goodsprings,” she said sadly.

“That isn’t surprising. Major head trauma’ll do that to you-“ He bit his tongue. _Ah_. “But erm, more importantly… I think it’s possible for you. To make Vegas independent, regardless.” He looked at the silvery disc in her hand. “You were the one that was let into the Lucky 38, the first one since the war, apparently. If not you, who else?” 

She immediately looked up from the chip at him. “Y’smart and y’know things,” she said. He laughed, shaking his head.

 “Trust me, my track record might get us into a scandal or two. You won’t want that.”

She looked at him for a brief moment, until her face lit up suddenly. “Us? Will y’help me?”

“Erm,” He felt his face heat up with embarrassment. “I mean. I definitely think an independent Vegas is in the best interests for Freeside and its residents. So I'll help.”

She threw her hands in the air, grinning widely. “Yeah!” she exclaimed, bouncing on the balls of her feet. Upgrading the securitrons and hightailing it out of the bunker, they chewed and swallowed more Rad-Xes. The Courier informed Caesar that she'd destroyed the bunker, and that she'd get back to him about the Boomers, and left the gates of the Fort with no intention of returning. 

The boat back was more relaxed, and it felt nice to be rowed back over the water by members of Caesar's legion while he did absolutely nothing. Minus the whole Legion aspect, it would be quite pleasant. It was late afternoon, the surface was calm, and the air felt cool from the water. The water rippled where they rowed, making patterns in the water. Now that he wasn't riddled with anxiety, he was getting bored. _Funny how that works_ , he thought.

The Courier looked at the Fort as they rowed away, chewing her bottom lip. No doubt, thoughts of the Legion and Caesar would be fresh on her mind. She turned to Arcade and asked suddenly, “Who's Dante?” 

He was taken by surprise. “Dante Alighieri?” he answered. “He was an Italian poet. He wrote some famous poems, a long time ago.” 

“Before the war?”

“A long time before the war.”

“Poems… About what?” 

He gave a short explanation, but surprisingly she was interested in the topic and pressed on with more questions. It spanned into almost an hour where Arcade explained Italian long narrative poetry from the middle-ages to The Courier. She came to understand the topic slowly, and asked a lot of questions, and typically the same kind of obvious questions multiple times. Arcade didn't mind, to him it was touching that she took interest in the topic.  

Upon taking a glance at the Legionaries on the boat, their expressions seemed darker than before, clouded with something more than just fatigue. _Oh,_ Arcade realised. _They're being forced to listen about ancient poetry with no escape._ He continued, with The Courier's encouragement.

The sun was setting around half-way through the journey, and Arcade's mouth was dry. The Courier conjured up a bottle of Sunset Sarsaparilla which they shared, while Arcade continued. He was able to finish explaining _Inferno_ and then almost halfway through _Purgatorio_ until they got to she shore.

The people rowing the boat glared at him as they hopped off. “Vobis gratias agimus²,” he said to them as he set foot on the dock. They looked at him strangely, and their expressions bordered on anger. “Uh, I mean. Thank you.”

The Courier mimicked Arcade. “Vobis gratias agimus,” She murmured, bowing her head towards the Legionaries. “See y'guys soon,” She lied.

Heading north, they looked for shelter for the evening. Under the night sky, The Courier found a place to sleep in an old seemingly-abandoned shack, lying top-to-tail with Arcade on a double mattress. 

The air was stagnant, and more importantly it was silent, only for the sound of The Courier breathing, but only if he focused hard enough. His mind got the better off him, and he couldn't find it in himself to drift off. The events of the day seemed to merge and blur into one. Thinking that The Courier was siding with Caesar, attacking the robots in the bunker...

He had agreed to help her, there at Fortification Hill.

Arcade as a Follower could only do so much in assisting The Courier, and most likely not much more than he could do at the moment. If The Courier was to really have New Vegas as her own, she would most likely be close to the Followers, and the two… factions, if you could call her that, would depend on each other. The Followers weren’t a military power, so in the actual battle of Hoover Dam, they could only be on standby ready to treat the injured.

 _If there were any injured left_ , Arcade thought. If it went terribly, the Legion would just slaughter all the men, and enslave the women and children. Even if they were defeated the first time, the Legion were lethal and more worryingly brutal. He had heard about the massacre at Nipton, Caesar’s practice of _decimatio_ , their crucifixions…

Perhaps he could help, he thought. He was caught in the crossfire of the eventual second battle of Hoover Dam, no thanks to this courier. He thought of Daisy showing him the controls of a Vertibird, and Johnson showing him how to reload a laser rifle… 

 _If not you, who else?_ He had told her. Who else indeed had contact with people who had technology that were bounds in front of everyone else, technology that could stop Caesar’s Legion from crossing the dam. 

Moreno would have problems with that, no doubt, if he was asked to fight at Hoover Dam.

His hands were resting on his chest, clasped together, and he was staring at the ceiling. “...Are you awake?” he murmured.

There was no response, only deep breaths, and the rise and fall of her chest. Less than a minute later, he heard a quiet snore.

Perhaps he was overthinking it all, he thought, and eventually he fell into a slumber as well.

 

\----

 

Once again, they approached Freeside, familiar territory to Arcade. As they approached the large wooden gates at the Old Mormon fort, The Courier said it was time for them to part ways again.

“Oh,” his voice was empty. ”Are you sure?”

She nodded “Mm. Need to sort some stuff out. Easier if it’s… just me.”

“There’s you and sorting stuff out again… You know, if you want me gone, you can just say. You don’t have to walk me back here each time.”

She scratched her neck. “What if something happened?”

He laughed. “I’m not quite as delicate as I look, you know, and I’m perfectly capable of handling myself in a fight. If I recall correctly, we’ve fought together at least once or twice.”

“...What if you got lost?”

“Lost?” He snorted this time, “Heading towards the Strip? You’d have to be blind to be lost around these parts, and I have these for that,” he tapped the side of his glasses.

“Well! Fine,” she huffed. “I’ll leave y’to the Super Mutants next time.”

He chuckled. “No, I appreciate it. It’s very thoughtful of you. But it’s not worth making yourself travel this far, just for my sake.”

 “Mmm,” she pouted, and then froze. Her head snapped up, and she stared at nothing, blankly for a moment. She turned to rummage in her bag.

“What’s up?”

“Mm, while you’re in there, give these to Julie,” she handed him a bunch of Radaways, a bottle of Rad-X and a dozen of doses of Med-X. “Says she’s low on supplies.”

“Oh, thanks. You sure you don’t need these?”

She shrugged. “I can get more. Don’t like using Med-X that much, so...” She trailed off, rocking on her heels. “Anyway, see y’later.”

He smiled. ”Safe travels and _pax tecum_.”

She looked confused. “ _Pax tecum_?” 

“Oh. It means _peace be with you_. It's... something to say when you say goodbye.”

“Oh. _Pax tecum_ , then. Bye!”

She ran off, turning back to smile and wave. He hoped that the wastes wouldn’t wear her down too much. 

Through the gates of the fort, Julie was busy, as usual. “Hey,” she glanced up at him from her clipboard briefly, and then again when she saw what he was wearing, with a confused expression. He suddenly remembered that he was wearing raider armour. “Been far?”

 _Oh, just to Caesar’s fort and back._ He offered her a shrug. “I was here and there. She left me these, and said they were you. Where do you want me to put them?”

He took out the assortment of medicine and presented them to her. “Oh, great. I’ll take them off you. From your Courier friend?”

“Yeah, I guess,” he figured that the two of them were actual friends.

“These are great…” She took the supplies from him. “I never got her name…”

He adjusted the straps at his chest. “She answers to ‘Courier’,” he said, “So that's just her name, I suppose.”

 

\----

 

After one more strange look from inside the fort, he changed back into his lab coat, and went back to work.

Rather than covertly seek out what the network of rumours that Freeside had to offer while pretending to be doing something useful, his mind wandered to what The Courier had said in the bunker at Fortification Hill. He had agreed to help back then, and he could fulfill that promise.

But to what extent? he thought. The remnants of the Enclave could help out tremendously at Hoover Dam, but he wondered what they would think of it. He wondered what The Courier would think of him if he told her about that part of his life.

He worried about what Moreno would say, or any of the others would say. To them, he was still the same little boy, his nose buried in a book, in whichever part of the refuelling base in Navarro was the quietest.

In the Fort, he stopped counting the days, but there weren't any days when he wasn't thinking about the remnants.

It was at an instance where he was lost in his own thoughts when Julie approached him. “That friend of yours negotiated a deal with the Garrett’s for us. For Med-X and alcohol.”

This finally got his attention. “She was here?”

She nodded. “She's a good person. Peculiar, but still good,” she smiled, and Arcade hoped that The Courier would come back to the fort soon.

 

——

 

“‘Cade!” she rushed up to him, as if she was in a hurry. Her armour looked different, and was sporting a red beret. “You have my scrap metal.”  

He blinked. He had been keeping an eye on the gates, yet she had completely caught him by surprise. “It’s good to see you too. And yes, you left me with around ten pieces of it.”

“Come, it’s really important,” and she tugged on the sleeve of his lab coat, and he was near-dragged out of the Old Mormon Fort. 

The Courier had acquired some newer, better armour since the last time he saw her, and at the first opportunity that arose he changed into his. Underneath her beret, he could tell that her hair had grown, still in a bizarre shade of carrot-orange. “So, what’s up?”

“Need some scrap metal for one of the Boomers. And finding his girlfriend.”

“You’re in contact with the Boomers now,” he said. At this point he wasn’t even surprised. “How did you get past them?”

She grinned, rubbing underneath her nose with one finger. “If you hug the wall, not many hit.”

Thankfully or unfortunately, she seemed to be her old reckless self. “I… see. Well, I’m glad to see that you’re in one piece.” 

She gave him a hearty slap on the back, which made him flinch. “You too!” 

After stopping off at the Crimson Caravans where The Courier talked to a red-haired woman, they were bound northeast for the Nellis Air Force base. “They’re weird,” she said, hushed in tone as though the Boomers could hear her from miles away if she talked too loudly. “I pretend that it’s cool, but. They’re kinda weird.” 

“...How so? They’re not the first group of people to be incredibly hostile to outsiders.”

“Mm… They really like exploding stuff.”

He recalled The Courier selling all her explosives, and he never remembered a time when she used them.

A blond man in the hangars graciously accepted the pile of scrap metal, and seemed to be happily reunited with the woman from Crimson Caravans, who was donned in a modified Vault-Tec jumpsuit. 

Nellie Air Force base was vast, dusty and flat. It reminded him of somewhere where he once called his home. He followed The Courier though the barren air base.

“It’d be good if y’helped the doctor here. Has some patients, n’ I’m not good at that.”

He nodded. “Sure, I can do that. A question though, if you don’t mind.”

“Huh?”

“What are your intentions here? You’re clearly working to get on their good side, not that I don’t blame you. I would too, if the opponent had a deep interest in explosives and using them. But you could’ve just… Left them be.”

He had a good idea of what her intentions were, but he wanted to hear it from her, directly. She thought for a second. “I’ll need help, at Hoover Dam. Everyone I can get. If these people like me, they’ll help. I think. ‘Splode Caesar, ‘stead of me.” 

He nodded. “I see.” 

The medical station was a dusty hull of corrugated steel, in the shape of a half-buried tube.

Outside the door to it, she gave him a little wave. “I have to kill some ants, ‘n stuff. See ya here.” 

“Good luck, not that you’ll need it,” he said, waving back. 

She froze, frowning. “No, I’ll need it. I only have three luck.” 

He laughed. “Alright, take care.” 

He spoke to the doctor, first and foremost introducing himself as the person who came with the orange-haired Courier. The doctor, a greying man who introduced himself as Argyll, happily accepted his help. The seclusionary habits of the Boomers were obvious when he didn’t know what a Follower was, and referred to him as an outsider.

He quietly dealt with the patients, who were simple enough to treat with his medical knowledge. Argyll watched. “That’s some fine doctoring,” he commented.

He pressed a wet cloth on a particularly nasty insect bite.  “Ah. Thank you. I mostly specialise in research, but I had a good teacher.”

 “With those ‘Followers’?”

“Ah, no. Back home. Far west, away from here. You’ve probably never heard of it.”

“Is your girl from there?”

He bristled at the words _your girl_. “Uh, no. She’s from a place called Goodsprings. Kind of south-west from here. Not as far from where I’m from.”

“How long have you been together?”

“Err,” he said, “We just started travelling yesterday afternoon. We’ve travelled together before, we aren’t … We just travel together,” he said, weakly.

He shot him a look, a very skeptical look. His throat felt dry, and he tried to change the subject. “If you’d like, I can teach you a thing or two about what I know. About doctoring.”

“Ah, well. All I know are from a few first aid books. If you could teach me anything, that'd be very much appreciated.”

After hours of tutorage, The Courier burst through the door, announcing something about raising a lady in the lake with an incredible amount of excitement. Argyll smiled, and Arcade sat, baffled.

 

\---

 

His feet were dipped into the cool waters of Lake Mead. Sitting on perched on a slab of concrete, his boots were unlaced and placed neatly next to him, and his plasma defender ready in holster in case any lakelurks wanted to join him on his relaxing afternoon.

The Courier had gone for a swim, to the bottom of Lake Mead to find an old Pre-War aircraft for the Boomers. 

A book was on his splayed on his lap, a pre-war book on the history of medicine that The Courier had found. It was in a miserable state of almost falling apart, and she had rebound it with watered-down wonderglue, with the tattered cover was replaced by cardboard snack boxes that had been cut to size. As he wiped his glasses with the corner of a rag, he glanced at the blurry island across the waters. It was only when he slipped his glasses back on that he noticed something from a corner of his eye, an NCR trooper was standing next to him.

“Ah, uh,” He almost dropped his book in the water. “Hi. May I help you, sir?” 

He spoke quietly “The dissolute that travels with _Caesar’s_ courier,” _Caesar_ like _Kai-zar_ , he wasn’t sure whether to be relieved that the NCR soldier wasn’t an NCR soldier, or concerned that the man disguised as one was one of the Legion. 

“I… do that... occasionally,” he said carefully.

“I’m aware that you travel with her.” Arcade swallowed, and the man heard him. “Don’t worry. I prefer to handle matters such as these delicately, and I believe that you can assist me.” His voice was cold, and curled around every word he spoke, yet held no emotion. A single, lone Legionary, whose sole presence was frightening him.

He nodded. “Well, uh. How may I help you?” 

“Every one of my Legionaries sent to The Courier have been fruitless in their mission.”

“Oh,” he tried to sound disappointed. “That’s not good,” he lied.

“A message from _Caesar_ was to be delivered to The Courier. Not one has returned to me to say they had successfully contacted her.” _Sounds like they ran away_ , he wanted to say. Instead he gave a hum.“I was expecting you to shed some light on the matter.”

The disguised Legionary stared at him intensely. Whoever he was and whatever rank he was in the Legion, he seemed ready to cut Arcade down at a moment's notice, or carve the meat from his bones until he made the correct string of noises. Arcade knew he was an awful liar, so he was glad that he had no reason to. “...I’m not sure what you mean. I haven’t seen any Legionaries since leaving Fortification Hill and the Cove.”

The man staring at him paused, knowing that he was telling the truth. “...Strange.”

Strange indeed. The NCR wouldn’t have intercepted the messages, and he couldn't imagine any third party would, either. Arcade wondered what not one returned meant, they had gone missing, most likely. If they were found dead, especially by blunt force trauma, Arcade would already be hacked into little strange meat pieces, if he was lucky, having been granted an instant promotion from dissolute to profligate. _Fantastic. Just like him at HELIOS One..._  

Alongside this, this man assumed that Arcade had been travelling with The Courier for the past few weeks since The Courier went to their fort, which was a fair assumption, and lucky for him. Arcade had no idea what this mystery entailed. Had The Courier failed to tell him if something happened in his absence…? 

He thought of them going missing. The Courier wouldn't be one to capture Legionaries, he wasn't sure if she'd know what to do with them, other than bury them. Bury them, he thought in a panic. 

“Oh,” he said out loud, as it clicked in his head. _Burying the body!_ They wouldn't find any bodies, not unless they knew to actively look for makeshift graves, as The Courier dug one for every one she came across, or one that might be created by any violent individual's poor luck. 

The other man noticed. “Perhaps something came to mind?”

“Uh, well,” If he could kick himself in the shins, he would. “I just realised, you probably assumed I've been with her the entire time. I haven't - after she went to your fort, we stopped travelling together. We only started traveling again a few days ago.”

The strange man nodded. Behind him, he caught sight of the Courier on the shore of the waters, dripping wet and waving her arms at him. He faced away towards the water, wiping his glasses with a rag.

He hoped that the Courier could pick up on the situation, that this NCR soldier wasn't friendly in the slightest.

“The Courier should be in the vicinity,” the man commented, ironically unaware of the woman behind him in the distance. 

He looked our to the lake, as if he was looking for her. “She went for a swim.”

“Are you able to swim?” 

“No,” he replied, and the man let out a short breath like a laugh. That time he was lying. He had his physical training as a kid, as much as he hated it, it meant that he could swim. He just wanted to enjoy a book and a bit of the cool waters, without getting his entire body wet. 

He focused his attention to his uniform. From the corner of his eye, The Courier was moving slowly towards them.

He turned back, thumbing the page of his book, while a silence stretched between them, pulled out like a medieval profligate getting drawn after being hung. Arcade wondered if he'd have his head held under the water until he told the truth they wanted to hear. He imagined himself strung up on a cross - but not a true crucifixion. In a true crucifixion you wouldn't be tied, but nailed onto the cross. He was glad that Caesar overlooked that detail, or perhaps it wasn't practical…? He grimaced.

His glasses were slipped back onto his ears, and he set the book gently down beside him. He looked to the fort across the water.

At this range, he could gash him with his ripper, leaving him to hobble away and die of sepsis, which wasn't particularly elegant. He could shoot him at point-blank with a blast of plasma that would incapacitate him, and that could be more advantageous. Stunning him, and leaving The Courier to whale on him with whatever force she had with her.

If only if he was standing up. If he moved, the man would have the tactical advantage. It would take too long to for him to stand up and get his weapon, until the man from the Legion would get his machete out...

If she could distract him for a moment, he could stand up, and attack him from both sides. Or if he could distract him for The Courier.

“You've travelled far to get here,” he said lightly, attempting to make small talk. “What way did you come from?”

The man scowled. “Give me one good reason why I should tell the dissolute about such matters.”

He chewed the inside of his cheek. “Ah, sorry,” If he could kick himself in the shins, he'd do it again. ”I was trying to be friendly. Do you have a name? I'm Arcade.”

“I have no reason to state my name, either. Or be _friendly_ with you.”

He began to panic. he had run out of small talk questions, and he couldn't talk about the weather without it being too weird. He scrambled at the last thing he could think of. 

“So, uh. Are you married?”

“Excuse me?”

He turned to him, the man's face was twisted in confusion and disgust, and The Courier was within tire-iron distance. With a blur of motion he heard a familiar sound, the clear thwack of metal hitting flesh. The strange man grunted and his knees buckled, and he tumbled over, allowing Arcade to stand up and blast rounds of superheated plasma at his body, point blank. He hissed in pain, stumbled over without any use of his legs and the new burns on his torso.

Before he could bite out a few vicious words, The Courier swiped at his head and it exploded into grume and blood.

The Courier breathed deeply, wiping the blood that had splattered on her face. Arcade stared at her, his heart hammering in his chest from adrenaline. “I believe you have some explaining to do. Again,” he said, between shallow breaths. 

She looked around the surrounding area. He did the same, but saw nothing and nobody. “Where’s his soldiers?” she said.

“I… Are there meant to be more?” ”Do you know him?”

She didn't answer. “He's important. To Caesar. Might have back-up.” 

She stripped him of his uniform and his belongings, and she began digging nearby. Arcade dragged the body towards the hole. “Did you do this to all the others that came to find you?”

She nodded. “Told the first one I didn't want to help Caesar anymore, ‘n got mad. He was gonna tell Caesar, so I… uh.”

“You knew this one?”

“Yeah. Wool-pez.”

“Vulpes, so Fox…” _Imagine_ _naming_ _someone_ _Fox_ , he thought.

She shook her head. “He wore a wolf-hat.”

A _Vexillarius_ , stand-barer for the Legion. He wondered if this was the same man at Nipton The Courier had described. He didn't ask.

“...I wouldn't be surprised if he had a scout watching him from afar, that'd report back to Caesar.” 

She paused, her shovel mid-dig. “So they'll know...”

 Arcade nodded. “It wouldn't be surprising if they didn't.”

They successful buried the naked and decapitated Vulpes, and gathered their belongings and set up a camp around a fire. The Courier poked at the fire with a stick, while Arcade held his book, yawning.

“I'll keep watch,” She said to him. “Y'should sleep.”

He got himself in his sleeping bag, dressed in light clothing. The night sky, that would be littered in stars if his glasses weren't tucked neatly in his lab coat pocket, inside his bag.

Though his body was exhausted, his mind was full of thoughts of the Legion, and flat barren expanses of dirt and asphalt. These thoughts has been with him for nights on end. 

“I need to talk to you about something,” he said, suddenly.

The fuzzy image of her froze, and her head faced him. He remained as he was. “It's nothing bad, kind of. Don't worry. It's about what you're trying to do - helping Vegas be independent. I think I can help.”

He talked about his upbringing in Navarro. About his father, the Enclave, his escape from Navarro, and about a group of old veterans. She listened until his mouth felt dry.

“They're good people, and they have the experience. With that they could help out and maybe set one thing right, out of the many that the Enclave did wrong. If you could talk to them, I think they could help.” 

“And ask to help at Hoover Dam. For the NCR, right?”

“Yeah, that's…” He trailed off. “I mean, I don't necessarily agree with everything that the NCR do, but they're a lot better than the alternative.”

She nodded. “Okay.”

“Thank you,” he said, still staring at the sky. “I… appreciate it. For listening to me.”

“'Tsokay,” she murmured back as the fire crackled.

Talking had helped him calm him. He closed his eyes and thought of nothing in particular. After a few minutes, he drifted off into a comforting slumber.

 

\---

 

Gathering the Remnants was relatively simple, and it happened slowly. The Courier had errands to run, and they met up with them as they passed by where they were. To his surprise, The Courier seemed interested in them, and more than he expected. She listened carefully to what the remnants said, and the conversations between them and Arcade.

It had gone relatively smoothly. Going to Jacobstown, then Westside, then to a little cave in the middle of nowhere. She had asked if Johnson - known as cannibal Johnson - was actually a cannibal. Moreno went on his spiel about the NCR, and The Courier was backed into a metaphorical corner. She ended up lying and saying that they were helping the Legion in the battle. 

 _That’ll... turn out well_ , he thought.

They had stopped out at Novac, and the Courier talked to Daisy, asking questions about the vertibirds, which she answered happily. The Courier left, but Arcade stayed to talk to her for a little longer. Daisy talked about her life since she last saw Arcade, scavenging parts, the ghouls from REPCONN, and so on. Arcade didn't talk a lot, but he mostly came to listen to a familiar voice.

Outside the colossal dinosaur monument, The Courier was stood next to a man in sunglasses, and a red beret. The same one as The Courier’s.

“Oh! That's Arcade,” she said to the man in the sunglasses. His expression didn't change. “Y’done with Daisy?”

Arcade didn't recognise this man. Well built, stoic expression, and bald. “I was just… Checking to see where you were. I'd realised the time, and I didn't realise it'd been a while.”

She shook her head. Unlike the beret that as neatly on the stranger's head, one side touching the top of his ear precisely, the other side showing the insignia of _NCR First Recon_... Hers was just tugged onto a mop of orange hair haphazardly. “Mnn, it's okay. I'm with Boone,” She gestured with her hand towards them. “Boone, Arcade. Arcade, Boone,” she said, officially introducing them. 

So this was the fabled Boone. “Nice to meet you,” This Boone didn't seem particularly personable, so he tried to put on a friendly tone. “Arcade Gannon. I'm a doctor, with the Followers. Nice to meet you.” 

The man only gave him a curt nod, a vague noise and nothing else in response. Arcade looked to The Courier. _So much for first impressions_.

“Boone went w’me to Nelson,‘n to Black Mountain. He's good at guns.”

“I see,” Arcade said, and Boone only stared at him, immediately making him uncomfortable. “Well. If you have company, I'll stay with Daisy for a little longer. I assume we're setting off tomorrow.”

She nodded. “Towards Jacobstown,” she said, and Boone turned to look at her, but still said nothing.

At dawn, they set of, heading north-west. As they left, The Courier waved at the dinosaur that guarded Novac.

 

\---

 

_Thursday! Argh- Dammit!_

The ground was cold and hard, his head felt heavy as he sat up in a start, hearing a quiet _clink_ as he did so. His limbs ached, and a jacket was covering him like a blanket. He didn't remember lying down, his head felt like it was filled with fluffy balls of cotton. The Courier was sat on the floor next to him, kneeling, immediately reaching for him as he sat up, and she exhaled in relief as he did. “What the hell happened?”

“We got done by Cazadores,” she said gently, touching the spiked gauntlet covering his arm. His memories slowly came back to him. En route to the bunker, being assaulted by Legion assassins was no problem. With a few deft shots in the arms, they were slow and clumsy enough with their weapons to be beaten to death by The Courier.

The ground around this region resembled soil more than hard-packed dirt of the desert, it was heavier to move but easier to dig. He remembered weighing up the pros of cons of each, and trying to think which was better or worse as he shovelled the soil onto the Legion corpses.

It was long after the burial when the cazadores attacked them from behind. Quick-moving bastards that were hard to hit, and it was after the first instance being stung when he began to panic. He continued to shoot at the insects instead of dealing with his own wounds, and he remembered The Courier grabbing his arm and jabbing a stim into it, and shortly after that he was lying on the ground.

He heard another clink from himself as he moved. It sounded high-pitched and clear, like glass hitting glass. Reaching in one of his pockets, he pulled out two small ceramic vials.

“I've been an idiot,” He sighed. “I’m sorry for making you worried.”

He shook the antivenom he had failed to remember, uncorked and tipped the contents into his mouth.

When a cazador stings, the venom is five times worse than the wound. As a doctor in the Mojave, he should have known better than not immediately treating the poison. He swallowed, grimacing. The aftertaste was as expected, but still unpleasant: snake sinew and blood.

She shook her head. “As long as you’re woke.”

Beside her was a pouch he kept in his duffel bag, filled with medical supplies. A doctor's bag was open, looking thoroughly rummaged through with its contents spilling out. “Thanks to you, I see.”

“Mm. Pulled the stingers out, put the… alcohol on it. Then the stims.”

He held out his arms. The marks of stims and stings littered the top of his arms and chest like constellations he didn't recognise, and the bottle of isopropyl alcohol was next to her. 

His head was still fuzzy, and he stared at his arms. “Pretty good for an amateur. Good job.”

Her face lit up, “Really?” she said, as if she hadn’t expected it. 

“Mmm. I mean, if you were a doctor I'd have to offer some pointers. But this is a good start,” He was feeling oddly talkative. “You have potential.”

“Really?” She repeated, more shocked than before, and her tone became more hesitant. “But I'm not… smart.”

“Smarter than someone who doesn't take antivenom when he gets stung by cazadores,” he quipped. “It’s just remembering information. You’ve remembered things in the past. And you’re good with people, that’s an important part of the job.”

While the poison wore off, Arcade told the Courier about stories of the patients in the Old Mormon Fort which he had heard or seen, most likely breaching some code of medical ethics. In this state of mind Arcade didn’t care enough to consider them, and he continued telling the Courier about an instance of a part of a dog being stuck inside a Freeside resident and, “Yeah. It was… distasteful, to say the least. You should have seen the doctor. I don’t think I’ll ever do anything as philanthropic.” 

The Courier squinted. “Filla-what?”

“Phil-an-tro-pic,” he spoke so she could hear each syllable. “Selfless, kind… Basically the kind of attitude where you’re seeking to improve humanity for the better.”

Her face twisted. “That’s philanthropic? Doing that to a dog?” 

“The doctor who…” He tried to find the right words than phrase it crudely, and his thinking was slowed. “Resolved it was, yes.” 

“Hmm,” The Courier frowned, looking at the doctor’s bag. “Don’t think I want to be a doctor.” 

Arcade just laughed, watching the clouds move slowly through the sky. “It's not all awful. I've helped deliver children before,” he hummed. He was trying to make out the shapes in the clouds. “That's nice.”

The Courier seemed surprised. “Like, babies? Thought you did like... cactus stuff.”

He smiled wryly. “Mm-hm. But if the doctors are short of a pair of hands, I usually step in.”

 A last resort, he thought. Arcade remembered how his bedside manner was criticised by the other doctors. _You need to be more gentle_ , he remembered someone saying, and being told that _you can't just click your tongue and say, ‘Well, this sure is something,’ in that tone near the patient._ He almost missed being nagged. “It's pretty amazing to be able to help someone like that. It feels a little more rewarding than holding down a frenzied addict, for some reason.”

The Courier hummed, and listened to more about life as a doctor. When he could feel his limbs again and think more clearly, he picked himself off the floor and the two of them headed northwest.

 

\---

 

Entering the remnants’ bunker, a unit resembling a terminal was near another door which The Courier immediately gravitated towards. Her fingers were resting on the keyboard, and she stared at a spot in the corner of the blank screen, in her own world.

“...Do you remember the password?” Arcade prompted, and she nodded. 

From a pocket near her chest, she dug out a piece of cardboard. “Navarro remember old friends dear.” 

“Rearranged, the words make a sentence, and that's the password.” 

The Courier stared harder and hummed, then went silent. Her brows were furrowed, mouthing the words on the paper.

“Need a clue?” She nodded. “It ends with Navarro.”

“Old Remember friends dear, Navarro?” She started, and he smiled, shaking his head. “Friends dear old, remember Navarro?”

“Almost,” he said gently. 

“Dead old friends, remember Navarro?”

“Yep,” he smiled, and she typed it in, slowly. The door clicked open and they stepped inside the bunker.

 

\---

 

The Courier set out the plan to the remnants, to fight for the NCR so they could keep the dam, but to have Vegas be independent. 

Moreno stormed out, and The Courier went after him. It was as he expected. His vendetta against the NCR hadn’t died out over the years, understandable it being the people that destroyed his home, but it had been years. More years of him being out of the Enclave than in. The Courier had experienced the horrors of the Legion first-hand, and Arcade thought that she could explain that the NCR were in fact the lesser of two evils that could take over the dam.

His blood ran cold when the door locked behind The Courier. Knowing that it was Moreno's doing, he feared the worst. Through the metal door, he could only hear a conversation that was too muffled or quiet to hear, and then some kind of commotion. The sound of metal on metal, and the echoing sound of what he could could tell was a Gatling laser.

Moreno was head to toe in Enclave power armour, armed with a heavy energy weapon. The Courier had combat armour and a club fashioned out of a car bumper. 

“There has to be a way out,” his voice was shaky, “She’ll die out there.” 

Krueger shook his head. “I’m sorry, Arcade.” 

His hands shook, listening to the Gatling laser reload and the sound of The Courier yelp in pain loudly. His hands rested on the locked metal door, unable to rush by to attend to her wounds. The worst form of torture - it wasn't him that was tried for being part of the Enclave, or being strung up on a cross for the Caesar's amusement, it was roping in an innocent bystander to be slaughtered mercilessly - 

There was a loud noise, and the ruckus stopped. The sound of uneven footsteps came towards the door, and the lock clicked open. “Arcade,” a voice in a room sternly said to him, as he reloaded his gun with max charge cells. He was half-ready to give Moreno a piece of his mind - until an exhausted Courier stumbled through, looking ready to collapse. Her leather armour on her arm was singed, the skin underneath was burnt and blistered into ugly reds and pinks. The bumper sword was dragging against the floor, and her breath was laboured, but most importantly she was alive. Doc Henry took a step, and Arcade rushed to her side, catching her as she stumbled. “You look awful,” he murmured.

“Yeah,” she mumbled. Her pupils were dilated, her eye motions were twitchy yet she blinked slowly, quickly scanning the room that she entered. Her hands were shaking, the kind of shaking he regularly saw in the patients that came to the fort. _Chems_ , he thought, with so many different symptoms that he couldn’t tell which ones. “Moreno‘s dead. M’ Sorry.”

The room was silent, staring at the woman who had single-handedly defeated a man donned in Enclave power armour. “Tried t'talk him out of it. Didn’t work.” Her eyes were horribly bloodshot, and watering. Her cheeks looked wet. “Sorry. Burnt through my stims,” she mumbled. “Got none left,” 

“I’ve got a doctor’s bag,” he said gently. “We’ll get you patched up.” 

“Can you tell me what chems you took?” Doc Henry asked.

“Don’t remember,” her voice was trembling, “Jus’ took ‘em.”

Doc Henry let out a near-inaudible sigh, one Arcade knew of distinctly. It was one of annoyance. “I can tell,” Arcade murmured, as he helped her to the medical bay of the bunker. Doc Henry followed, and she was gently lowered to a neatly-made bed. She was on her back, hiccuping, and her shaking was worse than when she first saw her.

Jet addiction? He thought grimly. No, it would be too early for any withdrawals, the Jet wouldn’t have even worn off. The panic was scrambling his brain. He stepped towards the door. “Doc, if you could treat her burns, I'm going to try and figure out what she's taken.” 

Doc Henry was already beside some gauze bandage and a bottle of isopropyl. He was removing the armour around her burns, with a familiar deftness. “Bossing me around, I see,” he quipped without looking up.

“Erm, sorry.” 

He didn't appear to be actually offended. He peeled off the armour from her arms, despite the rawness of her skin she seemed unaffected by the pain. “She's your patient. You have more experience with dealing with chem addicts.” 

He wanted to defend her, but he held his tongue and had more important matters at hand. He left the medbay swiftly. Rifling through her duffel bag, the only chems she had were as he expected: Chems for radiation, Mentats, a couple of doses of Med-X, and an almost-empty bottle of Buffout.

 Littered by the floor near the vertibirds were empty inhalers, needle syringes of various sizes, and around a dozen empty stimpaks. He noted the sources of the debris carefully. _Two Jet, Two Psycho, Three Med-X_ … underneath one of its wings was an old soda bottle with glass vials taped to it, _and one Hydra_ he added.

 _Hydra_ , he thought. _From the Brotherhood Power Armour…_

She was against a man in power armour, so she had taken anything that could put her at an advantage in combat. He never recalled her taking chems like these before. He grabbed some food and water from his bag.

Back in the medical bay, The Courier flinched as Doc Henry dabbed a wet piece of cotton onto the burn on her arm.

“'Cade,” she called to him as he walked in the small room. Her pupils were dilated, and her movements were twitchy. She was still sweating and shaking, as if she was horribly, horribly ill. “Y'back.” 

Jet, psycho, Med-X, Turbo, Hydra… Any of her symptoms would match with the cocktail of chems she had supposedly taken. Reaching for a stethoscope, Doc Henry said “One-eighty six,” without looking up. 

He clicked his tongue. “... That's higher than I wanted it to be.”

“She's under the influence. Did you figure out what she's taken?”

“Jet, Psycho, Med-X, Turbo, Hydra,” he listed, and Doc Henry frowned. He turned to his patient, who was sniffling.“You're going to have one hell of a comedown, Courier.”

She gave a mumble in response, something that sounded like an apology. 

After dragging a chair beside her to take a seat, he opened a bottle of purified water that opened with a crack. He passed the bottle to her, and she drank clumsily, water spilling down her chin. She took a deep breath as the bottle had been drained of its contents.

Her wounds had been dressed, bandaged neatly. Doc Henry gave a nod to Arcade which meant that she was in his care now. 

As the door slid shut, it was just him in The Courier. Arcade drummed his fingers on his knee anxiously. “Hey, I know you're probably off your face now, but. I need to say I’m sorry. For dragging you into a near-death situation.” 

Her eyes were closed. “T’skay. I do that a lot. To you too,” she slurred.

Arcade thought of HELIOS One, the time near the vertibird, and their run-ins with Caesar's Legion. 

Getting stung by Cazadors... “I feel like you’re the one who's always almost getting killed. Most of the time.”

“Good thing y’doctoring,” She murmured, and then fell quiet. While he dabbed the sweat off her face with a wet flannel, she let out a sudden snore which almost made Arcade jump out of his skin.

 

\---

 

After eight hours of sleep and a couple of stims, the burn wounds had healed completely, leaving nothing but a few faint scars. The chems had long since worn off, but as Arcade anticipated the comedown was heavy.

She was uncharacteristically silent rather than just quiet, almost broody. Arcade brought her a warmed can of Pork n’ Beans that she poked at it with a fork and ate slowly. “How are you feeling?” He asked, despite knowing that her response would be negative.

“...Bad,” she said quietly, “Very bad.” 

“Using stimulants will do that to you. Your body is adjusting to chemical imbalance and resources it burnt up caused by the chem, _chems_ , you took. Coupled with exhaustion, it’s not very surprising. Do you have any… cravings?”

He was unsure about how to phrase it delicately. With the amount she took, it was likely that she developed an addiction of some form. Addictions plural, perhaps.

The Courier shook her head. “I feel sad,” she murmured, looking down at her food.

Thankfully, she didn’t seem addicted to anything. He hummed. “We call that _Jet blues,_ back at the fort; a low mood is common after the high of Jet wears off. It’s theorised that it affects the brain like a lot of pre-war stimulant chems like ecstasy and cocaine. When the chem is consumed it releases a lot of chemicals that cause happiness: dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine, _exempli gratia³_ … Which causes the high. Once the chem wears off, the amount of these chemicals in your blood drop very quickly— again, a chemical imbalance—“ His eye caught The Courier was prodding at the at a chunk of pseudo-meat with a fork in the can, glumly. He wrapped his explanation up quickly. “So yeah. You will feel sad.”

She didn’t look up . “About Moreno,” she said quietly. “‘M sorry. About him.”

“It’s… It couldn’t be helped. The others understood,” he said. He had assumed that they understood, since they didn’t object to The Courier being treated by him and Doc Henry. Moreno's body had been dealt with without Arcade noticing, and they didn’t speak of him. Arcade didn't understand it, but this was their way of processing death and change, by not speaking of it.

“...If I said stuff different, could’ve maybe stopped him,” The Courier had stopped eating altogether.

“Maybe,” he said. “But... you can't change the past. You can dwell on it, but it's not worth it.”

Her frown deepened, her eyes seemed glossy and her lip trembled, ever so slightly. _Oh no_ , he thought. 

He tried to change the subject. “Hey, Johnson saying that you could have his old armour. Moreno's, I mean, since he isn’t going to be using it anymore. Yknow, Cannibal Johnson?” he tried, forcing a smile.

She bit her lip. “...Can’t wear it. The hydra-licks.” 

“They’d train you, of course. You could wear that Brotherhood armour you picked up, back near Black Mountain,” Arcade tried, desperately.

She sniffed, and hiccuped. As she blinked, tears rolled down her cheeks. _Oh, no._

Daisy had told him years and years ago, _It’s no good to make a girl cry_. Back then, she was taller than him, with less-wrinkled skin, in a puffy taupe jumpsuit and goggles around her neck. His glasses were brand-new for him back then, and he was kicking at the floor as his arms were crossed, consumed with guilt. The asphalt at Navarro was near-new with no cracks. His surroundings felt as empty at it did then. 

“Oh, god,” he said out loud, “Did I say something insensitive? I’m sorry.”

He wasn’t a hugger, and The Courier had never been the one to initiate. He went for a while reassuring hand on her arm like she did to him post-cazador, hesitating before remembering that it’d healed from the stims. “My intention wasn’t to upset you, whatever I might’ve said. I’ve never been good at reassuring people. I’m sorry.”

She hiccuped, and wiped at her face. “I messed up,” she said while sniffing. “With Moreno…”

 “You didn’t. It was either him or you.” He rubbed her arm a little, not knowing if that would be comforting to her or not. “I heard the commotion from inside, when you were fighting Moreno. I thought you were dead - not that I thought you weren’t capable but - he was the one in power armour. I was convinced that I’d lead you to your own death, back there...“ 

He patted her on the arm, awkwardly. “I’m not sure what I would’ve done if you didn’t make it back. I would have left, no doubt. I don't think I could ever come back to these people. So… thank you. For making it out alive.”

Still while sniffling, she held her arms wide, turning towards him. Her cheeks were still wet, and she said nothing. “Uh,” he said, uselessly. She flicked her hands towards herself, motioning him to come closer. “Erm, okay?” 

She threw her arms around him, and hugged him tightly. He weakly gave her an awkward hug back. Her grip on him was strong, breathing slow in a gentle rhythm that was occasionally punctuated with a sniff.

The Courier hiccuped into his shoulder. “Don't know if I can do anything good. I’ve been digging, lots.”

 _She’s_ _buried_ _a_ _lot_ _of_ _people_. Arcade held her gently.“...Sometimes, it'll happen. Not everyone can be your friend, or listen to what you have to say, even if I know that you want to. You're doing your best, and you have good intentions and… I think that's what matters.”

 _Errare humanum est, sed perseverare diabolicum…_ To err is to be human, but to persist in wrongness is diabolical. Even if The Courier stumbled, her intentions were true. Noble, even. “You have the potential to change lives, I mean, you've changed lives already, helping people around the Mojave. You've changed more lives than I have.” 

She smelt mostly like dirt and vaguely of sweat. He wasn’t keen on the damp feeling on his shoulder, yet strangely he felt comforted for the first time in a while. The presence of another human being would do that to anyone, he figured, only realising that he couldn’t remember the last time anyone hugged him like this. _Wow, that’s kind of sad_ , he thought, feeling her sniff against his shoulder. Ignacio never held him like this, because he was never the one to initiate anything like this, and because he always pushed him away.

He wondered if an apology to him would sound half-hearted and thoughtless at this point.

“At the very least, you've changed my life,” he said. “I didn't really think I would amount to anything. Travelling with you helped me realise that I could do a lot more. For Vegas, and for other people, besides dissecting cacti parts. And you’ve made me realise that. You've taught me a lot.”

She unhandled him, looking up to him and seeming more like herself. Her eyes were brighter but not wet, an her cheeks were looking less damp than before, dried off by his lab coat.

“Teach you? Y’already know stuff.”

 “It's the kind of _stuff_ you can't find in books. Some things you have to find out for yourself, and I think I managed to do that, thanks to you.”

The Courier nodded, her brows still furrowed. “I don't really get it.”

“You don't have to. Just know that I appreciate you coming to the Old Mormon Fort once, and convincing me to come along with you.”

She sniffed, and looked a little more like herself. “‘Preciate you too, ‘Cade. You’re funny.”

He snorted. “Well, what can I say. I aim to please,” he said flatly, which gave him a smile in response. Arcade let out a small sigh of relief. “So are you feeling better?”

“Yeah,” she murmured, wiping her nose with her sleeve. 

“Good. You should probably shower,” he said lightly. “No offense.”

She laughed, polishing off the can of beans, swinging her legs off the bed to stumble onto her feet.

 

—

 

Arcade passed by The Courier a day later, as he was packing a small bag of supplies. Johnson had himself and The Courier in power armour, minus their helmets; she was stumbling across the floor, her footsteps making sharp clangs as her feet slammed against the floor. Krueger winced and Johnson laughed, catching her and helping to her balance. Her clumsy movements reminded him of learning how to move in his father's power armour.

She had been hesitant, he noticed that she did it out of politeness, to take Moreno's power armour, but the remnants encouraged her to. When she received the okay from them, she happily accepted. 

The Courier slowly came, treading carefully in her new suit next to him. She sat on the bench with a clang, letting out a breath of relief as she relaxed. The black power armour looked strange on her, and he watched her flex her fingers in the suit. “How's the training?” he asked.

“She's a fast learner for someone who's never had Enclave physical training, that's for sure,” Johnson replied from across the room, and The Courier smiled. Johnson hadn’t seen her handle a missile launcher with ease or dig through hard, dry soil like it was pudding. Or, smack a man on the head with a tire iron and cause his head to explode from the sheer impact… He decided that he wouldn't mention that to the remnants.

Seeing her practice in her power armour reminded him of a small box packed away in a corner of the Old Mormon Fort, with two locks and labeled as dangerous chemicals.

He caught her eye as he passed her. “I need to go do something. I won't be gone long, but I'll catch up with you later. Thanks again for... everything, I guess. It means a lot to me.”

 

—

 

After a covert trip in and out of the Old Mormon Fort, he got what he needed.

He lingered outside the bunker, waiting for her to come out first, wanting to see her reaction before anyone else’s. He almost jumped when the door swung open, The Courier stepping out in her power armour, minus the helmet, spotting him.

She jolted in shock horror, eyes wide, and reached for her weapon. 

“Whoa- whoa! Hold on, it's me!”

The Courier froze as she heard his voice “‘Cade?” she murmured, and he nodded. He slipped his helmet off, and her expression softened. “‘Cade, that's you?” Her posture loosened, and her arms were lowered and by her side. “Wow. It’s got… stuff on it. Is it special?”

 _Is it special..._ He chuckled quietly. “It's the last surviving suit of original-issue Tesla armor.”

She stared at him, her face still blank. “What’s that?”

“Well- I mean. Yeah. I suppose it is special.”

She pursed her lips, staring at the bulbs on the helmet, now in his arms. “Why’ve you got special armour?”

“It, uh. Belonged to my father.”

“That's so cool…” She murmured, her voice soft. There was a faint blue light reflecting from The Courier’s face. In the dark, the bulbs seemed even brighter than they were.

“Maybe,” he hummed. “I’m a little rusty, but I’ll manage, along as you have my back.”

“Yeah…” she murmured, still drinking in the sight of the power armour. To him, it was normal. Once something he idolised, once something that he considered to be a symbol of a legacy that was too heavy for his shoulders. Now, he was old enough to know it was just metal and hydraulics. “Y’staying here then?”

He nodded. “I’ll meet up with you at Hoover Dam. I’ll be going with the remnants, when the battle breaks out.” 

She fell quiet, her expression saddening. “I'll miss you…”

“I’m sure there's better company out there, but thanks. I had fun. I'll admit, I might miss your antics for the time being. Take care of yourself. See a doctor if you break anything, won't you?”

She nodded.

“...Thank you, though. I owe you a lot, and I'm grateful for everything you've done for me. I’ve told you before, but I feel like… I can be capable. More capable at helping people, and helping Vegas since travelling with you. I really do appreciate it, _ab imo pectore_ ⁴.” 

“Ab emo...?” She asked, and he shook his head, dismissing it.

 The stars above them shone beautifully, devoid of any light pollution out in the middle of nowhere in the Mojave wasteland. The air felt quiet between them, and something about this felt bittersweet. 

“ _Pax tecum_ ,” she murmured. “That's... what y’say when you say bye?”

 _Ubi amor, ibi dolor. Where's there's love, there's pain,_ he thought. Of course their farewell would be bittersweet. Alongside that, even The Courier had remembered a little Latin. Perhaps it'd begin snowing in the Mojave, or maybe the moon would turn blue. Maybe one day ,all the people of the Mojave could live easily and peacefully. He smiled. “...It is. _Mi amica carissima_ ⁵, _pax tecum_. See you at Hoover Dam.”

She hugged him in power armour, as much as you can hug someone if you’re both wearing powered high-tech armour. They both laughed as the metal clanged and scraped awkwardly. He watched her walk away, and he wondered where she was heading next. To her, the world was seemingly her now-extinct bivalve mollusc, known as an oyster. She kicked the dirt by her feet, scattering little clouds of dust in the cold night air which faded and disappeared, like many, many things in the Mojave desert.

 

**Author's Note:**

> ¹ quantocius quantotius, “As soon as possible”.  
> ² vobis gratias agimus, Literally, “I give my thanks to you(plural)” A way of saying thanks.  
> ³ exempli gratia, “For example”.  
> ⁴ ab imo pectore, Literally, “From the deepest chest” From the bottom of my heart.  
> ⁵ mi amica carissima, “My dearest friend”.
> 
> cheers for reading. i wrote this for myself, but if you were able to enjoy it too then that really warms my cold undead heart. don’t forget to like coment subscrib smash that like butinfrwkjfdwijjkwdfn
> 
> now my arcade longpost is finished im free and i can go back to writing lesbian slowburn and reading shoujo manga. so long comrades
> 
> follow arcadebot on twitter https://twitter.com/AI_GANNON he is my proudest creation


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